The Warsaw Orphan Quotes

I’d learned the hard way that loneliness was difficult to survive, but grief was infinitely worse.

There are many ways to fight, but striving for justice is always worth the battle.

The human spirit is a miraculous thing. It is the strongest part of us—crushed under pressure, but rarely broken. Trapped within our weak and fallible bodies, but never contained.

When I was younger, I thought that life was fair. I thought that maybe each person was allotted a degree of suffering, but once they endured it, life would be easy. Now I know it is random, and that if there is any intention to life at all, it leans toward cruelty.

Maybe playing a part in the Resistance isn’t even about winning a battle,” Elz·bieta said, after a pause. “Maybe it’s just about being true to your values. About standing up for the things you believe and those you love, even if you know you can’t win.

art is not always for the viewer. Sometimes the very act of creating can mean salvation for the artist.

Hopelessness was a passive emotion, but its natural successor drove action, and that action rarely resulted in anything positive.

To face the inhuman, one must become superhuman.

Sometimes the very act of creating can mean salvation for the artist.

I know, Elz·bieta,” she said quietly. “There is a whole city who would much rather turn a blind eye to the suffering behind the wall, and sometimes that is very difficult to bear. I tell myself that it is enough that history will harshly judge those who did not act, but I know in my heart that it is not enough. I wish I could drag some of these people into the ghetto and force them to look into the eyes of the people we have seen. You understand the problem, don’t you? Bystanders have allowed themselves to be convinced that the Jews are not like us, and as soon as you convince someone that a group of people is not human, they will allow you to treat them as badly as you wish.

I need to believe that there is some hidden depth of grace within these men who torture us, because if there isn’t, then all hope is lost. And it’s not just lost for us, Roman, but for humanity, because even once all of this is over, this evil could emerge from the souls of men again and again and again.

This was why I learned to wear blinders, because if you got too close to the suffering, it would burn itself into your soul. This little girl was now a part of me, and her pain was part of mine.

Oh, God. Was it my fault?

How can it be that our young people aren’t aware of the unfathomable darkness the path of hatred and bigotry led our species to just seventy-five years ago? I do not believe

Never say things in anger that you will regret in calm.

resisting

This was why I learned to wear blinders, because if you got too close to the suffering, it would burn itself into your soul.

I wanted to find peace, but I realized peace could only be found if I accepted my life would never be what it once was. That

Those agonizing weeks during the Uprising confirmed that art is not always for the viewer. Sometimes the very act of creating can mean salvation for the artist.

The poor orphans needed much more than food and clothes. Their souls were so withered and numb that a simple smile or a story read aloud softly lit up their faces and improved their health as much as ghetto existence allowed.

I liked the diversity of our family life. I loved that my mother and Samuel had chosen to honor Florian’s wishes to raise me in his faith’s tradition, but I loved the richness and the rhythms of Jewish culture and religion,

If you had run, they would have shot you. If you had cried out, they would have shot you. If you had fought, they would have shot you. You were powerless against those men. You didn’t allow them to do anything. You didn’t invite them to do anything. Nothing you did or didn’t do could have changed what happened to you. It was a combination of bad luck and bad men. I won’t hear you speak like that again, and I won’t sit back and let you blame yourself.

This is all too much. I worry that I’m not strong enough.” “We just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other, son. When everything else has been taken from us, all we have left is each other, so we remain true to ourselves and look after one another.

forget that there is very little hope for us, and I just exist. I love those moments. On a day like today, though, I can’t help but wonder if I will ever have a moment of blissful ignorance again. When you have seen these things, things so horrific that you cannot help but become hardened to them, how can you just go back to existing again?

Because of the sewage! Not because the children are Jewish!

With every strap I sewed, I wished ill upon the wearer.